The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1887-08-05
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Discourse on the Pulpit Minis
tration of the Future
what the Preaching, Teaching and E1-
hortatioh Must Be in Order TO
Reach All tile Pe6ple-POins and
Brevity to be Commended

Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage, In recent
sermon at t'The Hamptons," took for his
subj Sc: "Preaehng, Teaching and Ex-
hortationi' illustrating it from th5 fol-
loving text:
Or ministry, let us wait on our Ininisterfa g
Jr he that teacheth on teaching; or he that Sx-
hortheth. on observation-disclosures xii, 4. =
B fore the world IS converted the style
of r<..glous discourse will have to be con-
verted. You might as we'll gB into the
modern Sedan or Gettysburg with BOWS
AID arrows insteal of riff 8 and bonn b.
s2slIs ami parks of tillery, as to expect
co conquer this world for God by the old
styles of exhortati ton and sermon oIogy.
Jonathan Edw fls p cached the sermons
ii 1st adapted to the age III which he
lived; but if those sermons were preached
now thev would divide the audience into
c assesi those sound asleep and those
wanting to go home.
But there is a religious discourse Of the
future-who will p each it l have no i1ea;
In What art of the earth it will be born
have no idea; in which denominatio
Of Christians it win be delivered can
not guess. That discourse or exhort a i'm
NAV be born in the country meeting
house on the banks of the St Lawrence,
or the Oregon, or the Olio, or the Tom
bi beei or the Alabama. The person who
shall deliver it may at this nom ant be in
d cradle under the shadow Of the
Sierra Nevadas, or in 8 New
England farm house, or amid
the rice-fells Of Southern Swan
mas. o. this moment there NAV be some
young man in some of our theological
seminaries, in the junior or middle or
senior class, shaping that weapon of
power. Or there m " be coming some
new baptism of the Holy Ghost on the
churches, so that some of rs who now
S and in The watchtowers of Zion; waking
to a realization of our present inef1ciency,
may preach it ourselves. That coming
discourse or exhortation may not be hfty
years of And let US pray God that its
arrival may be hastened, while I announce
to you what think will be the chief
characteristics of that discourse or ex-
hortation when it does arrive, and I want
to make the rem 1rl1s of the morning ap-
propriate and suggestive to all classes of
Christian workers.
First of all, remark that the fu ture re-
hgious discourse will be full of a living
Christ in eontradis tinction to didactir
techniCalities. A discourse may be full
of Christ though hardly mentio ring his
name, and a sermon may be emp = of
Christ while every sentence is repititous
of his titles The world wants a living
Christ, not Christ standing at the head Of
form II sys' EN- Of theology; but Christ
who means pardon and sympathy and
coincidence, and brotherhood and life and
mans Christ An ovarwOrked mans
Christ. An invalid's Christ. An artisans
Christ An every mans Christ.
A symmetrical and fine-w worked system
of theology is well enough tor theological
clpsses. but it has o more business in a
pulpit than have the tech mic Il phrases of
an anatomist or psychologist or a phv-
-, Ey,I- #,
world wants help, imme late and world
uplifting, and it will come through a dis
cou Sc in which Christ shall walk right
down into the immortal soul and take
everlasting possession of it, filing it as
full of light as IS this lay armament.
That sermon or exhortation of the future
will not deal with men in the thread bare
illustrations of Jesus Christ. In that
coming address there Will be instances Of
vicarious suff fering taken right out of
everyday life, for there is not day some
body is not dying for others. AS the
physician saving his diph heritic patient t
by sacrih ing his own life; as the ship
captain going down with his vessel while
he Is getting his p 'sseugers in to the life
boat; as the fireman consuming in the
burning building while he is taking
child out of a forth tory window; as in
summer the strong swimmer of East
Hampton, or Long Branch, or Cane May,
or Lake George, himself perished trying
to rescue the drowning; as the news
paper boy one summer, supporting his
mother for some years, his inv lid mother,
when ffered bv a gentleman fifty cents
to get some especial paper, and he got it,
and rushed up in his anxiety to deliver it,
and was crushed under the wheels OF the
train, and lay on the grass with only
strength enough to say:
''Oh, what will become of my poor 81 ok
mother nowP'
v.carious suffering. The world is full
81 it. An engineer said to me on a loco
motive in D kota:
I'VE men seem to be coming to a better
appreciation than we used TO. Did you
see that account the other day of an en-
gineer who, to save his passen gers, STUCK
to his place, and when he was found dead
IN ff1s locomotive, which was upside down,
he was found still smiling, his hand on
the air. brakeV
And as the engineer sid it to me, he
put his hand on the air-brake to illustrate
his me ming, and looked at him and
thou yht:
''You would be just as much Of hero
in the same crisis"
Oh, in that religious discourse Of the
fu ure there will be living illustrations
taken out from everyday life of vic Irious
Observation-Disclosures o1s tn 1T will bring to
mind the ghastlier sacrifcs of Him who,
in the high PLACES of the fell, on the
cross fought our battles. ami wept our
grief, and endured our struggle, and died
our death
A German sculptor made an image of
Christg and he as Ced his Ii tie chi }, two
yea s old, who it W IS, and she said:
"That must be some very great man."
The sculptor was displ ased with the
criticism, so he got another block Of
marble, and chiseled away on it two or
three years, and then he brought in his
little child, four or five years Of age, and
he said to her:
ssWho do you think that isT'
She said: That must be the one who
took Ittls children in his arms and
blessed them.''
Then the scu' ptor was satisfied. Oh,
my ie IDS, what the world wants is tot
a cold Christ, not an intellectual Christ,
not a severely magisterial Christ; but
loving Christ, spreading out his arms of
sympathy TO press the who's world TO his
loving heart
Butt remark again that the reH gious
discourse of the future will be short Con-
densation is dem lnded by the Gge in
which we live. N more need Of long In
troduc ioIs and long applic Itions, and so
many dIYis o - to a discourse that it may
be said 10 b. hydraheaied. In other days
men got all their ihf yrm alton from the
pulpit There were few books and there
we're no newspapers, ana ere was little
travel from place to place, snd pople
would sit and listen two and haf hours
TO . religious d scourse, and seven
q entity" would find them fresh and chi ip-
per.
In those days there was enough time for
q man to take an hour to warm himself
up 10 the subject, and an hour to cool of.
But what was a necessity then Is a super
fluffy now. Congregations are fun Of
knowledge from books, from newspa-
pers, from rapid and continuous inter-
communication. and long disquisitions Of
what they know already Will not be
abided- If a religious teacher can not
compress what hs wishes 10 say o the
-. L. In the ara. q Of fn.-Lu.H.-a rnlnulaa